SOFTWARE billionaire Bill Gates today gave a #28.5m grant to Liverpool's School of Tropical Medicine.

The Microsoft founder awarded the cash to the internationally-renowned school from the charitable foundation he set up with wife Melinda.

The grant will put it at the forefront of the world's fight to defeat malaria, and comes days after the Pembroke Place-based school was awarded #18m to create a new international institute to fight tropical diseases.

The Gates grant will be used to develop new research into malaria, which kills 2,000 African children every day.

Director of the School Prof Janet Hemingway said: "This award is wonderful news for the school and the city, and most of all the thousands of people in countries where the school is at the forefront of the fight against malaria."

An #18m grant to develop a new Centre for Tropical and Infectious Diseases was awarded by the Merseyside Objective 1 programme and Northwest Regional Development Agency.

This and the Gates award will see the school become one of the world's leading institutions dedicated to developing treatments for infectious and tropical diseases.

The new centre, to be built next to the existing building, and the new research announced today will see the school double in size.

The school, which employs more than 264 staff and hopes to create at least another 300 over the next seven years, will lead a new international consortium fast-tracking developments of improved insecticides and other mosquito-control methods.

The Gates foundation grant will be used to fund research in the new centre to develop safer and longer lasting insecticides.

The consortium will also develop improved bed nets and other treated materials, and information tools to help authorities in the developing world make better decisions about using insecticides.